Social Media Systems Social Media Marketing and Website Design Company

Enterprise Social Media Forecast and Analysis

Having been a consultant regarding online media for over a decade, I am constantly growing very weary of informational white-paper companies that are charging top dollar for “analysis” of an industry that is forever changing. In my previous life working at a Fortune 50 company on interactive projects, I can tell you that far too [...]

Which Resolution Should Your Website Look the Best On?

The answer most web designers will give without even a hint of thought is 1024 X 768. While on the surface that may seem like logical choice since according to most website’s analytics, it’s the resolution group with the highest amount of visitors. The problem with this answer is it doesn’t take into [...]

Build Your Social Media Site With Open Source Scripts - Don’t Go Proprietary

Occationally I talk to progressive companies that have taken the leap into social media and have implemented full social communities with lots of features that enable users to interact on the site, but when I look at their site I discover a propriatry custom scripted website.  In most cases this is a GIANT Mistake.
I [...]

Content Mixed with Advertising - The Future of Internet Advertising

Many of the old industry thinkers seem to have a hard time understanding that in the age of filtered information where you can instantly reference what you want and when, it’s becoming less and less effective to force or push ads on visitors.  Study after study show that the more savvy a user becomes the [...]

SPAM- A Brand Abused Like No Other

This article was original published on RISMedia.com this past week. Due to the response and commentary there I felt it would be a good read for many of our other industry related readers here. Like many other things, some good articles are lost in cyberspace amongst millions of pieces of clutter, just like good e-mail [...]

Real Estate Search Marketing Advice from the RISMedia Real Estate Leadership Conference

As I typed the first draft of this post in the airport, my head was still buzzing from the wild energy at the RISMedia Real Estate Leadership Conference, where Social Media Systems was an exhibitor. As head of technology and product development at Social Media Systems, it has been awhile since I did face-to-face networking. It was [...]

The 12 Do’s and Don’ts of Website Usability - SEO Basics Part 5

In this article we’ll take a look at some of the dos and donts of website usability.
First, lets explore the dos:
Do make the call to action more prominent visually and make it stick out more on the page.
Do include a one sentence tagline that says what the site or company does.
Do add a search [...]

Creating a Usable Website That Converts - SEO Basics Part 4

If you’re SEOing your website, you’re obviously trying to draw visitors or customers from the search engines to your website for a purpose.
Usability is a measure of how easy it is for a user to find information they are looking for or complete a task like buy something from a website. It’s basically ease [...]

Seeking Business Development Managers

SocialMediaSystems.com internet advertising group is seeking regional business development / sales managers to help ride a tidal wave of market growth in online and search marketing.
As a sales professional for this company, you WILL NOT be representing one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies selling garbage web sites, links, banners, pay-per-click, and generic search marketing [...]

2007 Real Estate Leadership Conference Cattle Call in New York:

In my 53 years on this earth, one of the most fascinating phenomenons I have ever witnessed is the buying frenzy and sheer buzz created annually at the RISMedia (Real Estate Magazine) Leadership conference in New York held each September (September 5th and 6th this year); and the subsequent NAR (National Association of Realtors) Conventions [...]

New testimonial from Local Author beta tester after 60 days:

New testimonial form Local Author beta tester after 60 days:
“Bill and I had been looking around for a blog for awhile for our real estate company, Legacy Real Estate Brokers, Inc. We realized blogs are the future and that it is a fundamental tool for realtors, we just weren’t sure what we wanted to spend [...]

High Quality, User Generated, Easy Streaming Video on your pages: the technology arrived!

Did you ever dream of sitting at your computer, and recording streaming video for viewing by visitors to your website?
Click the big arrow, then wait 1 second for streaming video:

DREAM NO MORE! You can shoot video like this, at home, or even sitting at your computer:
It is a brave new world online! Expect to see [...]

Researching Your Keywords - SEO Basics Part 3

Here’s the third in our series of articles on SEO basics, geared towards those readers who know little to nothing about SEO, ranking on the search engines and other such topics. These articles aren’t meant to be a full SEO course; they are simply here to educate you about basic SEO and what it does [...]

Conquesting, Reputation Management and online Public Relations

Just as we can use professional, intentional organic search engine placement, authority branding, articles and posts to promote our clients’ reputations online using social media, some not so righteous competitors of yours may use the same techniques to ruin your reputation, or render your marketing plan null and void online.
Be sure to read this article [...]

Rant: Stop the reciprocal linking campaigns, they are death to placement!

I cannot believe the volume of spam, the number of ripped-off advertisers still going on with reciprocal linking campaigns:  STOP IT!  RECIPROCAL LINKING WILL NOT GAIN SEARCH ENGINE PLACEMENT!
Everybody please wake up!  These programs do not work, create spam, cause useless clutter: they will actually ruin otherwise good placement now, there are stiff penalties for [...]

What is Search Engine Optimization? SEO Basics Part 2

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process aimed at improving the rankings of a website in the search engine results pages, or SERPs.
SEO consultants are often called SEOs for short. SEO began in the early 90’s as search engines began cataloging websites on the internet. Webmasters and website owners discovered that by [...]

What is a Search Engine? - SEO Basics Part 1

This is the first article in a series that will examine the most basic aspects of Search Engine Optimization and look at the ways it is changing. This series is meant for both beginning SEOer’s and those who simply want a better understanding of the internet. We will start at the most basic level, e.g. [...]

Onsite Search Engine Optimization Basics and Keyword Targeting | SMM SEM SEO Strategy Guide - Part 2

Onsite SEO basics are simple to implement and can increase your search engine rankings, but surprisingly most websites have even the basics completely wrong.
Before you start you need an automated backend or some type of content management system to build your site on top of; if you have a static brochure website (see this article), [...]

Real Estate Search Engine Marketing: placement requires authority!

If you want to rank for a competitive real estate search, or any other competitive search for a large, well financed industry, you must get links to your website from a recognised authority in that industry, and/or become one.
To complicate matters, most sites routinely insert no-follow tags into all outgoing links to maintain their own [...]

Surviving transition from Print to Digital advertising: tricky for some, profitable for others:

If you ask the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, or many others, times are hard for print publication ad sales.
Those ‘per column inch’ classified ads pricing schedules have given way to free internet classifieds; real time news has replaced next day news.
But not everybody has been left behind: case in point: RISMedia (Real Estate [...]